In the Dark of the Night
by sirensbane
Summary: Seth comforts Pharaoh after a nightmare. No slash!


Seth shifted the scrolls from one arm to the other, careful as he did so that none of them tore or got unduly wrinkled. Some of them were very old and all of them were valuable. One of the them was a history of the pharaohs and how Khemet had first been built…Some whim led him to turn his steps towards Pharaoh's chambers. Perhaps, if he were still awake, the pharaoh would find it interesting as well. As he approached, he became aware of a strange, muffled sound, echoing from a room somewhere ahead. It took him a few more steps for him to realize what it was, and when he did, his heart nearly stopped.

Pharaoh was screaming.

For a moment, the sound held him frozen in place. In all the years Seth had lived and worked in the palace, he had never heard Pharaoh cry out, even in pain or fear. The screams had some kind of alien quality to them, hoarse, brittle, and in that moment, Seth prayed fervently that he would never live to hear those cries again.

Pharaoh was _screaming_.

The scrolls tumbled to the ground, forgotten. He ran down the hall, his entire being focused on those awful sounds, his heart pounding in his chest. No servants. Why were there no servants running to see what was wrong?

"No!" Pharaoh cried. His voice broke. "No!"

Seth had reached the doors. They were closed, solid wood, but Seth didn't even pause. He didn't even acknowledge them; they were just some meaningless obstacle between him and his king. They opened under a rush of Shadows and Seth charged through them into the chamber beyond.

Pharaoh lay in the middle of his luxurious bed, the linen sheets that covered it sweat-soaked and in disarray. He muttered and cried out brokenly, flailing at some enemy Seth could not see.

"Pharaoh!" Forgetful of proprieties, Seth leapt across the room and grabbed the young king by the shoulders. "Wake up!" The pharaoh fought him, but the High Priest just held on tighter. "Atem!"

Pharaoh woke with a start. For a moment, he stared at Seth without recognition. Then the violet eyes widened and he jerked away. Seth let him go, studiously looking in the other direction as Pharaoh took a few deep shuddering breaths. From the corner of his eye, he saw Atem wipe his face with the corner of the sheet.

"Pharaoh?" Seth said carefully after a moment of silence. "I will leave you now, if you are…well."

"Stay." Atem looked up at him, and his hand made a nervous twitching movement on the sheets. "Please…stay."

"You have no need to ask me, my king," Seth said. "You have but to command."

A wan smile flitted across Pharaoh's face. "Because you take so well to commands."

Seth gave him a wry smile in return.

"I'm…I'm sorry I woke you," Pharaoh said.

"You didn't," Seth said. But he didn't volunteer more information. The blind panic that had driven him here was gone now, to be replaced with shame. He had burst in to the king's private rooms uninvited, unasked, and surprised Pharaoh in a moment of weakness. He had seen him, not as an immortal god-king, but as a man, and had called him by the name he wore as a man. An executable offense, should Pharaoh see fit.

Ah, but he would not. Somehow that made it worse.

"I dreamed of my country," Pharaoh murmured after a long minute of silence. "I dreamed that I stood upon a battlefield with the dead piled around me. There was blood everywhere, and where there was not blood, there was fire."

"A dream, Pharaoh. Nothing…"

"And a Darkness. A Darkness that consumed the world." Atem turned slowly to his High Priest with cold, empty eyes. "_I _was that Darkness."

"A dream," Seth repeated firmly. "If there is Darkness, my king…" He stared right into the pharaoh's eyes. "It is not in _you_."

Atem averted his face. "I wish I had your confidence, my friend."

"Atem," Seth said gently; his cousin looked up, startled. "If there is Darkness, we will face it. Together."

A smile, a warm, human smile, spread across the god-king's face. "And we will win?"

"Did you doubt it?" Seth asked, and this time Pharaoh laughed. The laughter turned into a yawn.

"Get some sleep, my king," Seth said, rising to his feet. "The delegation from Nubia is coming tomorrow morning."

"Ah." Atem settled down again on his bed. "Well, perhaps the Darkness will strike between now and then."

"If so, I will wake you."

Atem looked up at Seth; a look of almost childish need in his face. "And we will fight it?"

"Of course," Seth said. "Together."

"Together." Atem closed his eyes.

Seth stood by his side until he was certain the pharaoh was asleep. Then, heart aching, he walked towards the door.


End file.
